Stuck With You
by Nitrobot
Summary: When Dreadwing takes refuge in a cavern during a storm, he discovers Arcee injured and alone. Putting their differences aside, the two wait out the storm. (request for Greendogg)
1. Chapter 1

_A request for Greendogg, who wanted a Dreadwing/Arcee story and who came up with the plot outline. I just put a lot of fancy words together._

 **xx**

Dreadwing knew it would rain before he set out on his patrol, the clouds thick and churning with grey damp as his wings cleaved their way through them. Standing on the ground only made the atmosphere press down more on his shoulders, raindrops sliding off his armour and settling in his joints and seams. The dirt turned to mud under his peds, making every step a sludging effort to stay upright. Soon enough the rain was pelting him, streaming off his plating and leaking under his paint, spreading the threat of rust all over his frame. His optics barely broke through the mist, red spotlights struggling to pick out anything more than hazy silhouettes.

A claw of lightening ripped through the sky, and thunder filled the hollows of his audios. He needed shelter- he was no good to the Decepticons as a soaked, fried scrapheap. Looking around, optics constantly blinking themselves clear, he spotted a patch of darkness carved into the foot of a rocky outcrop, dappled with rain dripping from the lip of the entrance. The mud wasn't so deep here, and his peds found purchase on a floor of hard stone as he made for the dark haven ahead.

So dark, the entrance was, he didn't notice the cyan beams staring into him until he was right underneath the runoff of rain. Apart from his wings snapping upwards, Dreadwing froze. The blue armour was more navy in the humid gloom, but the hatred in those optics was unmistakable.

"Well... what are you waiting for?" Arcee spat through shudders, shielding herself with a blade jutting from her servo. "You gonna kill me or not?"

Like her, Dreadwing only had melee weaponry on hand. His sword hung between his shoulders, nestled against his spinal strut, but his digits only twitched rather than reaching for it. There was more cyan in the cavern, a pool of the blue glow appearing underneath the Autobot's body. Her other servo held a hand against her side, stemming the flow of energon still slipping between her digits.

When he breathed in, his intakes filled with the scent of fear. If this femme was in any shape to fight him, she would have attacked by now. In any case, he wasn't on a mission to kill.

"It would not be honorable to offline an injured opponent," Dreadwing said in his exhale. It would gain him back all the favour he lost with Lord Megatron, he knew, but that wouldn't be worth the shame. A mech was only as good as the opponents he fought in fair battle.

Her optics wavered, an eyeridge falling before her armed servo followed suit. "Guess it's my lucky day, then." She sighed, helm dropping as she pressed another hand against her bleeding plates. A flash of lightening illuminated the cave only briefly, giving Dreadwing a glimpse of scratched paint and broken metal.

"How did you get these wounds?" he asked, taking his own seat with his back against the other wall. His wings protested against the tight squeeze, but he folded them as much as his cables would allow. The femme's own winglets had a processor of their own, wiggling and twitching against the rock surrounding them both.  
"Insecticon... ambushed me," she eventually said. Each word came out in a heavy vent as her vocaliser struggled against static. "Took a bite out of me before I shot it down."

Dreadwing watched her shift position, angling herself to the right to disperse energon flow away from the wound. "May I see?" he asked, gesturing a claw towards the trickle of blue staining her protoform. She stared at him through slitted optics, studying every minute movement, before finally pulling her sticky digits away.

Though the dimness and amount of energon made details blurry, Dreadwing couldn't see any exposed wires or structure supports through the wide gash. A surface wound- prone to heavy leaking of fuel and possible rust infection if not closed and sterilised, but nothing a competant medic couldn't deal with.  
"It does not look fatal-"

"I know that," she snapped, glueing her hands back in place over the cut and closing her optics over. "I have basic field medic training, at least."

Dreadwing huffed through his vents but said nothing else to aggravate. Injured or not, he didn't like the look of the blade she had on her. His audios tuned to the pounding of rain outside battering and flooding the earth, punctuated with the drumbeats of thunder and snare-flashes of lightening. The natural orchestra lulled his processor, drowning it in sound.

"What brings a Seeker out in the middle of a storm?"

When Arcee's voice eventually interrupted it, he was caught off guard and almost chipped his wing off a stone as they both flared out. Under the cover of darkness, the femme smirked at his shock. Even her optics seemed to sparkle with mischief under a film of pain.  
"Lord Megatron is insistent of regular ground patrols, regardless of conditions," Dreadwing explained once he recovered, shrinking his wings back down. Still keeping her smirk plastered on, Arcee tilted her helm to one side.

"Sounds like your _Lord_ cares more about logistics than his own soldiers," she said quietly, immedietely drawing Dreadwing's glare onto her.

"Mind your glossa, femme," the mech warned. Steam started to billow from his frame as the heat of his systems made the moisture on his plating evaporate. Soon the cavern was covered with a thin veil of fog. "I... I have a fondess for Earth's storms, if you must know," he continued tentatively, if only to distract the femme from taking advantage of the mist. A wound wouldn't stop her from sneaking a sword slash through one of his wings if he couldn't see it coming.

Arcee only blinked slowly at him, helm still tilted. "Is that so?"

"Yes. Though I cannot fly through them, they... bring me peace. The rain cleanses the air." Even before the war, Cybertron's atmosphere was often too full of industrial fumes and methane clouds to enjoy soaring through. Cities like Iacon and Vos were free of the pollution, but they weren't places Dreadwing had the privilege of visiting before the Decepticons claimed him. Other than Autobots it seemed, no-one else had any appreciation for the small mercies of this dirt planet.

Arcee seemed to understand at least, from the twitch the firm line of her mouth gave at him. "Well, today's your lucky day as well, cause it looks like this one will last a few hours at least."

Dreadwing hummed through his engine, making to turn back to the rainscape outside when a sound caught him unawares. The femme was muffling snorts into one of her hands, with no mind to the energon staining her digits. One of his eyeridges quirked.

"What are you laughing at?" Dreadwing asked. Arcee had to calm herself before her vocaliser would allow her to speak.

"The one day I get stuck with a Decepticon is also the one day I forget to bring my gamepad," she replied, still holding back snorts.

His eyeridge remained up. "Are you sure you're not just delusional from fuel loss?" he asked.

A one shoulder shrug answered him. "Probably that as well."

"Then don't speak," he said. "Conserve the energon you have left."

She might have flashed him a petulant look at the undercurrent of _"and stop distracting me"_ in his tone while his back was turned, but at least it worked. Dreadwing's chronometer counted three hours until the storm folded itself away from the sky, and the femme hadn't spoken again for any of them.

As he stretched out the coiled stiffness in his joints, a glance over his shoulder let him know she was in a semi-stasis mode, and the bleeding had eventually stopped. He was still cautious in approaching her, even with her dormant EM field and shuttered optics. Lifting her servo from her side, he saw a hard crust of energon around her wound that blocked any more leakage. Then there was the button on the side of her comm unit, just above her neck. On scout frames, it would be a distress call wired to the comm of a medic. Her spark signal was no doubt being tracked, yet... she'd still perish if she wasn't found.

He flexed his digits before pushing the distress call, and stepping out into the dripping remains of the afternoon. Megatron would be expecting him back by now.


	2. Chapter 2

At first Dreadwing didn't answer the pings that popped up on his comm unit , from a completely unfamiliar source. All Decepticon frequencies had signatures, even traitors like Starscream if he had the nerve to try contacting the brother of the mech he let die in the dirt.

So either Dreadwing's unit was malfunctioning or, following Knockout's insistence that it was good as new, an Autobot was trying to hail him.

On the third day after the storm, he answered one of them.

" _I never thought I'd meet a 'Con who wouldn't try and kill me on sight."_ Arcee's voice was peppered with interference, but otherwise it was as if the femme was right next to him in his quarters. She didn't speak with any ache now. _"And I don't buy that it was just cause of honour."_

His engines stalled through a groan of annoyance, and it was a struggle to keep his voice low. Even Megatron's inner circle officers had thin walls to live behind. "What do you want, Autobot?"

 _"I want to know why you let me go."_

Dreadwing cycled stale stratosphere air before answering. "I'm not in the business of easy kills." He closed the line before the femme could lure him into another trap of talking. For all he knew the Autobots were trying to find the Nemesis' location through tracking his own frequency.

Even worse, maybe she was trying to befriend him.

There was another ping the next day, catching him in the middle of his washrack. Now she was just trying to _annoy_ him. He left the cleanser stream running as he bolted his outer armour on, trusting the noise to muffle his voice. This time he didn't wait for her to speak first, launching into as much of an interrogation as he could hold up over commlink.

"How did you get my frequency, Autobot?"

 _"I had it automatically logged in when I woke up,"_ Arcee answered after a short pause. _"It's a little scout trick- with extended contact I can download just about everything about you."_

He could see her silver smirk practically floating in front of him. Fists crushed his digits together by his sides as his denta clamped together, turning his words into hisses. "And why do you insist on provoking me?"

" _You call it provoking, I call it killing some time."_

Dreadwing blinked, wings shooting up in surprise. "You talk to the enemy when you're bored?" He wasn't even angry anymore, just... baffled. She was very confusing as well as irritating.

"... _Maybe I don't think you're that much of an enemy."_

Arcee was the one to cut him off now, and she ignored the pings he sent after her all that night.

That was how the weeks progressed- the daily routine of refueling, scouting, reporting in, and ending the day with a verbal sparring match. Each one left him feeling defeated, yet he always answered the next day. She was like a ghost lodged into his audios, haunting every evening. And whether or not this was just a game to her, a way to pass the time, he couldn't bring himself to stop talking. His glossa rambled on even when his processor was lagging leagues behind it.

Ever since his separation from Skyquake, he'd been starved of conversation. Maybe he was desperate enough to lay his spark out for an Autobot he still hardly knew anything about.

If Dreadwing had to guess, he would have said it was the sixth week when she made the offer. _"I think we should meet again."_

His optics snapped open, and if his back wasn't pinned against his berth surface his wings may have started fluttering in protest. "And why in the name of Primus would I agree to that?" he asked out to no-one.

" _It'll be raining,"_ she said. _"If you decide you wanna kill me, you won't have anything to clean up."_

Arcee was right about one thing, at least. He always knew when it was raining.

" _What's the matter?"_ she asked after his pause stretched out into static. _"I thought you liked storms."_

Slowly, his optics closed over again as air flooded through his vents. "Where did you have in mind?"

 **xx**

Though it wasn't as cramped as the cave, the shelf of rock Arcee had chosen was more open to the elements than Dreadwing would have liked. He hovered above it, wary of landslides or more technological traps waiting for him, but his peds seemed firm enough on the stone.

A few klicks later, the dampened roar of an engine announced Arcee's arrival behind him. She transformed in time to climb down to the underside of the shelf, where Dreadwing was hiding from the rain. Other than a long scar on her right side, there was no trace of the Insecticon attack on her frame. If anything, the mist of rain made her armour glow.

Dreadwing shook his helm, rebooting his vocaliser before trying to speak. "You've healed well," he managed to get out with a nod.

Arcee spared a small smile as her winglets twitched. "I have a good medic." She took a seat with legs slung over the edge of their shelter, staring out at the plains laid out before them. Rain spattered on her thighs, breaking the glow of her biolights as Dreadwing seated himself beside her.

He'd prepared something between an interrogation and verbal defence while he'd waited for her, but as usual she was the first to act. Both of her hands held energon cubes, one stretched out towards him.

His hollow tanks growled, but he flinched away. "Do you think you can change my allegiance with petty generosity?" he asked.

Arcee sipped at her own cube as she rolled her optics. "Even if Decepticons are a load of sneaky slaggers, I know you're not ones to switch loyalties over a cube of energon." She stretched her servo out further with a raised eyeridge, goading him to accept it. He swiped it from her hand just to get it out of his face, cradling the cube in his digits. Pure blue- any poison or impurities would have altered the colour. Even so, he was hesitant to drink.

"You _are_ different, though," Arcee said, balancing her cube between two digits. Dreadwing cast her a side glance, frowning through his gulp of energon.

"And what gives you that impression?"  
Arcee swung one of her legs back and forth over the lip of rock, watching him with her tilted helm and beaming optics. "You let me live," she answered.

His digits squeezed hard, almost shattering the cube between them. "I told you, that was a matter of honour," he growled. "It has nothing to do with war."

Arcee smiled through a disbelieving huff. "You switched my distress beacon on before you left."

That was a fact not so easily fielded, and Dreadwing let his optics drop. "What kind of mech would I be to leave a femme at the mercy of the elements?" he tried to reason with.  
Arcee drained her cube before supplying an answer. "A Decepticon one."

Dreadwing might have smacked her off the cliff from how his wings flared out, exasperation flaring in his olfactories. "You may have your opinions about my faction, Autobot," he barked, drilling a harsh glare into her. "But yours has killed just as mine has."

With a blank expression she set her cube down, optics skirting around the beam of his gaze. He assumed she was searching for an insult or a quip, something to place her back on top, but he was wrong. "You're right," she admitted, with only a tinge of regret in her tone as she now made eye contact. "Other than a symbol and an army... there's not much difference between us."

Once again, Dreadwing found his vocaliser empty. The sincerity had made him mute, the truth practically choking him. He tried to dislodge it with something sour. "My brother would have killed you by now," he told her. Skyquake might have killed him as well, for such a long hidden betrayal.

Arcee only gave one of her condensed laughs in answer, and the smile she gave seemed centuries old. "Yeah, well... you're not the only one who's lost to Starscream."

At that moment, Dreadwing finally saw something he recognised in the femme- grieving. "Did you lose family?" he asked, setting his cube to one side with his appetite starting to flee.

Arcee curled her legs up and kept her helm low, pressing her reply into a whisper. "You could say that."

As they sat and stared at the rain, their hands found one another, and his digits remained limp as hers wound around them.


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanks everyone for your reviews and interest in this :)_

 **xx**

At the back of his processor, Dreadwing knew why he was summoned to the Nemesis' bridge. Even before he noticed the amount of drones guarding the entrance and scattered at workstations, far more than was usually needed to keep the ship airbourne.

He had his suspicions that he'd been caught, and the screen displayed in front of Megatron confirmed all of them.

"Do these logs look familiar to you, Dreadwing?" his lord asked as he turned to face him, one servo gesturing over the list of audio transcripts that detailed every hidden conversation with Arcee. Before Dreadwing closed his optics in shame he thought he saw Soundwave shadowed by a computer station, no doubt lurking to see the results of his hard work.

"You of all mechs know the price of treason." Megatron's disappointment buffeted Dreadwing in waves, and when his optics dared to open they saw his leader standing on equal footing as him, just a few ped steps away. He could almost smell anger as his intakes flooded with air.

"Yes, Lord Megatron," Dreadwing said heavily, wing tips almost scraping the floor. Metal thudding and gently scuffing told him the drones outside were starting to surround him, as well as the hum of ion rifles warming up.

"But you were never one to submit without a fight," Megatron said, with a ghost of what Dreadwing might have called respect if he thought the warlord was capable of it. "So, will you come willingly for once, or will I have to drag you to your reunion with Skyquake?"

Dreadwing angled around his helm slowly, taking in the circle of glowing gun barrels trained on him and the blank faceplates of his executioners. The way he came was blocked by a wall of weaponry, and even drones below the bridge were aiming up at him. Megatron had his own servos folded behind his back, not needing his plasma cannon to make his point. Even Soundwave seemed to watch him, monitoring every minute twitch down to the rhythmic tap of his digits together. The only way to go was...

"My brother will wait for me." Dreadwing didn't give time for his verdict to sink in before activating his thrusters a nanoklick before his T-cog, catching the air just as it filled with ozone and gunfire and slamming upwards through the roof of the Nemesis. The collision send thrumming vibrations of pain all through his body, but he pressed on into the open stratosphere waiting for him. Clouds and wind whipped past him as he propelled onwards, ignoring the crackling of his nerve nodes and the protesting squeal of his engine. He didn't even dare look behind him for pursuing Vehicons, intent on only putting as much empty space between him and Megatron as possible.

By the time he found a safe haven on an empty patch of scorched earth, his tanks were depleted and his cooling fans were on the verge of giving up. With no wind to blow it away, coolant started to drench his frame as he collapsed on the ground. His HUD was a lightshow of warnings, and it was only when he started threading through them all that the consequences of his escape weighed down his processor.

The Decepticons, Lord Megatron himself, had exiled him. Even if they weren't hunting him down, he'd enter stasis lock when his fuel cells inevitably ran dry. It was the most he deserved, with his judgement clouded by Arcee and his loyalties growing less certain every day. He was no better than the likes of Starscream.

His claws dug hard into the solid ground, and his faceplate cracked a scowl despite the ache. No, he _wasn't_ Starscream. At least he didn't leave one of his own behind to rust and die. Even so, he knew he couldn't blame the Autobot for his exile. He could have stopped contacting her at any moment, could have refused to meet her. Most of all, he could have cut her down in the cave like any Decepticon worth their insignia would have done.

Dreadwing's intakes rattled past his dust-choked vents. He could worry about the countless what-if's later, when he wasn't in danger of deactivating out in the open. After gutting his comm unit clean and resetting his frequency, he made a call to the only bot who could help him now. He knew her frequency number off by spark, by now.

"Autobot." He spoke quickly, almost coughing on a plume of dust rising up from his throat. "I... must meet you again."

There was a pause. " _The usual place?"_ He tried not to think of how good it was to hear her voice.

"Yes."

" _Why is your frequency different?"_ He almost didn't recognise concern permeating her words- it didn't suit her well.

"I'd rather explain in person."

" _Dreadwing, while I have you..."_ His digit pulled away from his comm unit, almost clicking it off. She'd never addressed him by name before, and never spoken with such a troubled tone. _"There's something you should know."_

Hesitation kept his digit hovering before he reached a decision. "It can wait," he said, before clicking his unit off. He needed only the essential systems using up energon if he planned on getting anywhere without dropping out of the sky.

 **xx**

By the time Dreadwing managed to stop his claws scratching furrows into the rock, he'd already made deep alcoves for his hands. Arcee had been watching him the whole time, EM field abuzz, waiting for any kind of reaction.

He lifted his helm up, though it weighed down his neck cables as much as a sun bolted to his shoulders. "How many sparks?" he asked, in a voice so distant it was as if his vocaliser was outside his body.  
"It's twins," Arcee answered. Her vocaliser sounded as if someone had stepped on it.

Banishing the clanging emptiness of his energon tanks, Dreadwing circulated air heavily through his frame, optics blinking slowly as they kept themselves trained on the horizon. Sunset was coming. "Would it be foolish of me to ask who the sire is?"

"You know it is." Again Arcee's hand went to her chestplates, hovering over her spark chamber as her digits rubbed at her armour seams. Dreadwing could feel the heat of her carrying spark even with his wingspan between them.

"What are you planning to do?" he asked.

"My... medic didn't ask who I'd interfaced with. And no-one else knows I'm carrying for now," she said, still shielding her chest. "It would be easier to terminate them both-"

"If that is your wish," Dreadwing forced himself to say, even as his spark wrenched at the thought. Children had never been something he anticipated even before the war, but they had always seemed a concrete part of his future. Something to keep him going after the war, with a femme by his side to keep his spark anchored.

Arcee wasn't the first he would have chosen, but Primus seemed to have other ideas in store for him. Her glossa stilled at his interruption, and her servos dropped to her kneeling legs. "...But I don't want to," she told him quietly, silver digits wringing themselves together in a nervous tangle. "I want to keep them. Even if I have to raise them myself."

Dreadwing's optics closed over as a hiss of relief exited his vents. Now he only had himself to worry about. "The Decepticons know of our relationship," he informed her.

Her faceplate moved for the first time in their rendevouz, an eyeridge shooting up. "And they let you live?"  
"Megatron attempted to terminate me, but... I escaped." His wings shuddered, still exhausted from the frantic flight and wind ripping at his plates.

"What are _you_ planning?" she asked.  
"I have no plan." The truth sounded even more hopeless out in the open.

"Would you... join the Autobots?"

The straight line of Dreadwing's mouth tugged downwards. "I've already made one betrayal this day. I do not intend on ending it with another."

A shift of metal sounded Arcee repositioning herself, her EM field crackling closer to his own. "How can it be a betrayal if you're no longer a Decepticon?"

A growl slipped past before he could squash it. He turned his helm towards her, optics almost burning in his sockets. "I may not have a master, but I still have my honour. And I would not give that up for any promises of safety your Prime can give me."

Arcee blinked at him all through his assertion, the light of her optics fading slightly. She waited until his helm turned back to the plains before speaking. "I'm not going to... use our sparklings against you. But if you reject the Autobots just to preserve your own conscience... you're rejecting a lot more than just our help."

Primus, why did she always have to make so much sense? Dreadwing's scowl persisted, but the tension in his frame was slipping away. "You and I both know they would never accept me." Autobots were known for taking in the lost and broken, but a tearaway Decepticon would never be trusted.

Arcee must have known that as well, but she only made a small noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "You'd be surprised." Another shift of metal, and the next time Dreadwing craned his helm he was greeted by her outstretched servo.

"No matter which way you see it, you saved my life," she said, quirking her digits at him. "Let me repay the debt."

One hand still held itself close to her chest, cradling the twin sparks developing behind the thick plating. Dreadwing could feel them growing, ebbing warmth over the frail bond that still hung between him and Arcee. The closer he was to her, the stronger the bond tightened. And when he took her hand, he could feel a strange happiness blooming out from her.

"Very well," he said. The decision had been made for him every since their sparkbond.


	4. Chapter 4

_I am planning for this to be the final chapter- thank you to everyone who read and reviewed :)_

 **xx**

Dreadwing counted the third hour he'd been kept outside the medbay with an impatience that was starting to ingrain itself into the cracks of his faceplate. The only one allowed near Arcee was the Autobot's medic, who only showed slightly more contempt for the Seeker than for his long-term teammates. Not even the beloved Optimus Prime himself was permitted a glimpse at the miracle.

Eight months now Dreadwing had spent with these Autobots, and they still threw him scraps of scowls whenever they thought Arcee or their leader wouldn't notice. In that time he'd managed to carve out a niche for himself, though aerial reconnaissance was a far cry from the responsibilities he had as the Decepticon's second-in-command. Demotion as well as betrayal weighed his wings down. Still, he made do and earned his energon. At least Arcee gave him a reason to stay.

Another tug on his spark almost pushed him onto his peds, the bond with her thrumming even through the walls separating them. His chamber was already a frenzy of crackling and buzzing, and as his twins slowly arrived his spark tried to push towards them, burning against his chest. He hissed, balled his digits and kept himself bolted to his seat- even when he heard newborn cries just a few feet away. It was another half hour before the medic finally inched himself around the closed screen of the medbay. Cleanser slickened his hands as he rubbed them together, and he cast a cautious look upwards at Dreadwing. He frowned, as always, but jerked his helm towards where Arcee was waiting. Dreadwing forced himself to rise slowly, nodding to the orange mech and trying not to run towards his mate.

Arcee lay like a slab on the medical berth, shiny with coolant under the bright lights. Her chest, carefully pieced back together over her spark, jumped up with her steady breaths as they rattled past her vents. Though her optics were closed, blue light started to bleed out from tiny slits as she noticed the new presence.

"Dreadwing?" Her voice was a whisper, as if this was still a secret between the two of them.

"I'm here... Arcee." One of her servos was draped limply over the berth, and he took it gently in his hand. His thumb pressed into her palm, slowly stroking the damp metal, and a smile seeped into her faceplate. He knelt down to better see her, tilting his wings up to stop the tips scraping on the floor.

"Are you alright?" he asked, with wary glances at the fresh weld marks on her chest armour. She nodded, tilting her helm sideways towards him and lifting up her other servo placed over her abdomen. Her hand went for his faceplate, and he helped press it against the warmth of his cheek.

"I'm not the only one who... wanted to see you." Her optics shifted, looking over his shoulder, and he turned to follow their light. A small tray on a table sat behind them, glowing with tiny sparks inside them.

Reluctant as he was to leave Arcee, Dreadwing pushed himself up and treaded slowly towards the makeshift cot. The frames inside were barely bigger than his hand, blue protoforms wrapped in energon-stained blankets. Though they'd stopped crying, their mouths wobbled with mewls.

The tray was disturbingly light in his hands as he picked it up, cradling both sparklings in his arms. "A... mech and femme?"

As he turned towards Arcee, she nodded, holding out one servo to him. Gently he transferred his burden to her, helping her sit up to look properly at the newborns. Her digits hovered over their tiny faces peering out of the blankets, and they tried to burrow into their mother's phantom touch. The femme managed to catch Arcee's thumb, nuzzling her dark faceplate into it while her brother laid his helm in her palm.

Dreadwing fought back pangs of longing as his spark swelled. "Have you thought of names?" he asked.

Arcee took a few more moments with her children before answering. "I want to call the femme Shadow."

Dreadwing nodded. "Fitting." Their bond flared with their sparks so close together, and the sparklings seemed to feel it from how their mouths popped open in yawns. Arcee scooped each one from the tray, cushioning them both gingerly against her chest.

"You can name the son... if you want to," she said, soft optics shedding light over the mech's faceplate. He made a small whimper, a surprisingly deep noise, but his closed eyes adjusted quickly. It reminded Dreadwing of a sound that often occupied his storm vigils.

"Thunder," he decided.

Arcee's smile bloomed wider. "It's lovely." Newly-christened Shadow started drooling on her armour, trying to wedge her gums around the metal, but Arcee didn't seem to have the spark to stop her. All she did was hold them, rocking each sparkling gently in the ebbing warmth of her spark. And Dreadwing watched, wondering how on this strange dirt planet he managed to make a family in the Autobots.

Arcee's voice soon interrupted his disbelief, though. "Don't you want to hold them?"  
He blinked, hands clenching together as they rested on his knees. "I... I might hurt-"

She was already rolling her optics. "Don't be ridiculous, Dread. Here." She handed over the nearest sparkling, Thunder, into his arms before he could object. The mech immediately nestled near his elbow joint, turned towards his chest and started nibbling on his accents. Of all the things in the universe, it tickled him, and he was smiling before he could stop himself.

"They are so small..." he muttered, carefully placing a digit astride his son. Just one joint was bigger than the sparkling's whole body. It was Arcee's turn to watch as sirehood started to overcome the surly Seeker.

"Don't worry," she said, pressing Shadow closer in her grip. "They get bigger eventually."

Dreadwing couldn't help laughing, a small huff of air through his vents, though he'd almost forgotten what it sounded like by now. Thunder's olfactories flared as he tried to copy his sire, wriggling in his tight swaddling and curling against the thinnest patch of plating between sparkling and buzzing spark chamber. The medic might have returned at some point, but Arcee shooed him away with a sharp glance as she cradled Shadow. All in all, Dreadwing lost count of how long he spent there just holding the newborns, and thanking Primus for them.


End file.
